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jellyfish3232's avatar

If we were to take all of the humans on Earth and tape them together, creating one big ball, how strong will our gravity be?

Asked by jellyfish3232 (1852points) March 7th, 2011

Not that you would know off the top of your heads…

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12 Answers

12Oaks's avatar

Depends on the kind of tape being used.

Nullo's avatar

@12Oaks Very probably Physics Problem Tape, which is sufficiently adhesive and lacks mass.
“First assume that the cow is a small sphere…”

jellyfish3232's avatar

@12Oaks
@Nullo

Very funny. Very funny. It is indeed physics problem tape.

blueiiznh's avatar

When in rest, no.
When in motion according to the ever faithfull E=mc2, a massive body increases mass when accelerated.
The abstract to the article Measuring the active gravitational mass of a moving object, D.W. Olson and R.C. Guarino, Am. J. Phys. 53(7), July 1985

gorillapaws's avatar

World Population x Average Weight = Total Mass of All People. Gravity is relative to mass and distance of the 2nd object you’re comparing.

jerv's avatar

Considering that the total biomass of the entire human race is fairly meager compared to even some large asteroids, I would say that the gravitational force of that mass would be fairly meager.

zenvelo's avatar

(7.1×10^9 people) * (50 Kg/person) = 355 Billion kilograms Mass.

50 Kg per person is a W.A.G.

jerv's avatar

@zenvelo Actually, probably closer than you would think. The number of children and malnourished adults in the world offset the mass of us obese Americans.

zenvelo's avatar

@jerv that’s what I was thinking.

Tobotron's avatar

if you could take all the humans and compress them down to the size of a football then the gravity would be relatively impressive right?! more impressive than if they were just a giant taped up ball?!

zenvelo's avatar

@Tobotron The calculations for gravitational force have to do with mass, not density of an object.

jerv's avatar

@zenvelo They also involve distance from the center of mass though, and a smaller radius would allow one to get closer.
Then again I think there are buildings which have more mass than us humans.

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